Polleni at Fish Story

thebiggerthebetter

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Got two from Rapps in Jan 2019 at a tiny 1". They grow slow, only about 5" today. One grew bigger faster but was bullied by the smaller one (surprising) so I had to separate them to two different 240 gal. Brazen fish. Challenges most tank mates but not too viciously... or they run away too fast and it is too lazy to chase them all over the tank... Runs away when challenged by a larger cichlid, such as texas, jack dempsey, etc.

Here is the smaller one on the "minnow" 240 gal:


You'd be hard pressed to find and see the bigger one still in the original 240 gal but here is the video just in case / for posterity:

 

duanes

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I have never been able to keep just two Paratilapia in a tank together (unless they were spawning)
Having 1 male and 3 females worked for a while.

The male (lower individual) hit about 12" when full grown, the photo below was mid way to that point.

But even in a 500 gal pool, when only two, they would seek each other out to do battle.
 

thebiggerthebetter

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The smaller but more aggressive polleni has been bothering its tank mates in the minnow 240 gal, or so I assumed. Often I'd see scales missing on the dozen of mahseer tank mates, and on Chumlee, a 12" Vieja melanura, a whole patch of scales went missing.

So since I tentatively blamed it on the polleni (I saw some aggression, not all of it), I thought that maybe polleni is tough enough to tough it out in our jerk 240 gal. Well, it couldn't. It was the worst case scenario though. During the day I often would come to the jerk tank and check it out and the polleni was fine, untouched, or barely touched. The next morning it was beat up to half death. The little Malawian lab weasels for some reason waited til dark to let the polleni know its place. It was too late. It died in the hospital tank in one day. The damage is by the Malawians and by purple Labeo once the polleni couldn't swim away anymore from being bet up and exhausted.

100_001.JPG


The bigger but less aggressive polleni is still in its original 240 gal but has been having external problems with patches of dead skin for the past 4-5 months, which IDK what to do about. It can be seen here, if one squints and looks carefully:

17:35-18:35 minutes:

 

thebiggerthebetter

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The starry night is now around 8", doing well, takes readily both herring and NLS giant pellet:

 

thebiggerthebetter

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thebiggerthebetter

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The starry night had been feeding overzealously in the 1800 gal for a a good half a year, after which time it stopped feeding (fed only occasionally) and started to sit in the corner lethargic, maybe swollen, and show white fuzz here and there on the body, which I presume is the saprolegnia fungus eating away necrotizing skin and scale. Looks eerily similar to our other cichlids that overfed, had same external symptoms, then died.

 
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